Actor and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio continued to use his celebrity and skills in film to promote climate change alarmism with a recent series of shorts. His view that fossil fuels were the driver and mankind was responsible for climate change was as obvious as it was predictable.
The latest short film, “Green World Rising,” was released Oct. 30. It was the third in a series of four films by DiCaprio that sought to combat what it called the “scary climate problems that we face.”
In the second film in the series, “Last Hours,” DiCaprio actually said, “nearly all life on earth could go extinct because of man-made climate change.”
Scary was the right word. All three films utilized ominous music and images of natural disasters to persuade viewers that humans caused climate change through fossil fuel use and people must act immediately to stop it. The first film, “Carbon,” depicted a giant monster made of carbon. An unnamed expert who commented in “Carbon” said, “People should not have the freedom, quote, unquote, to destroy the planet. They cannot continue to be able to do that with impunity.”
Not all scientists agree on the impact carbon dioxide had (and will have) on the environment. The Heritage Foundation reported on March 11, 2014, that Patrick Moore, an ecologist and the founder of Greenpeace, testified that, “There is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are the dominant cause of the minor warming of the Earth’s atmosphere over the past 100 years.” He said that before the Senate Committee on Environmental and Public Works.
“Green World Rising” followed up on that theme claiming all energy needs to be and can be converted to renewables. (Emphasis added) Angela Anderson of the Union of Concerned Scientists claimed more than 500 coal plants “are fundamentally non-economic, they can’t compete with alternatives like solar and wind.”
If that were true, renewable energy forms would already be making up large amounts of energy the world demands, rather than providing just a tiny sliver of the total energy mix. They also wouldn't need to be propped up by government mandates and subsidies with the sorts of government interventionism DiCaprio and other alarmists have advocated.
In “Carbon,” liberal radio talk show host Thom Hartmann, who had been in a number of earlier DiCaprio productions, praised Finland and the Netherlands for implementing a carbon tax in 1990, saying that they were “putting a put a pricetag on each ton of CO2 poison.”
“Poison” was a powerful word, but not one all scientists would agree with. Marc Morano of Climate Depot pointed out on Aug. 21, 2014, that Princeton physicist Dr. Will Happer rejected the idea that CO2 was “poison.”
Happer testified before Congress in 2009 saying, “I keep hearing about the pollutant CO2, or about poisoning the atmosphere with CO2. CO2 is not a pollutant. It is not a poison and we should not corrupt the English language by depriving ‘pollutant’ and poison of their original meaning,” DiCaprio and Hartmann will need more than carbon monsters and poisonous rhetoric to convince a public whose concern about climate change has waned.
DiCaprio participated in the “People’s Climate March” in New York City along with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., according to video from PJMedia posted Sept. 22, 2014. DiCaprio told Michelle Fields of PJTV, he was marching for “100 percent clean energy.” Fields asked DiCaprio about his extravagant and carbon heavy lifestyle but refused to answer the question. At the same march, RFK, Jr. spoke out against the Koch Brothers and Exxon but when challenged to “lead by example” by giving up his cellphone, he resisted.
In 2007, DiCaprio also pushed climate change alarmism with his film “The 11th Hour.” “The 11th Hour” incorporated many of the same themes as “Green World Rising,” about the causes of climate change. It argued greed was killing the planet and was inspired by Hartmann’s book, “The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight,” according to the Oct. 5, 2007, New York Daily News.
Two years earlier, DiCaprio participated in Laurie David’s “Earth to America” television special which aired Nov. 18, 2005, and attempted to use comedy to make the case for climate alarmism.
DiCaprio, Hartmann and their celebrity and media allies have continued to make the case for man-made global warming, in spite of failed predictions, failed temperature models and other scientific challenges.
Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal pointed out that the “existing climate models (including those by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) failed to predict the 16-year plateau in global temperatures even while carbon dioxide emissions have increased.” That led Dr. Roy Spencer to suggest it may be time to question the assumptions built into most climate models.
Recently, global warming alarmists and the network news media misleadingly claimed walruses were running out of places to live and must gather on land in larger groups as a result. However, Dr. Susan Crockford said such walrus haulouts have happened for years.
